Joaquin Cienfuegos Candidate Statement

KPFK can be a radio station where new people are being trained on how to run their own shows, how to produce, how to interview, how to record, and how to work the board. People should be broadcasting from the frontlines of their local battles and struggles against oppression and injustice. There should be broadcasts in multiple languages, not just English, like Korean, Togalag, Mandarin, Spanish and so on. We need to have more shows that are youth initiated, for and by young people and working class people of color. The issues of today and the issues of the oppressed should be priority on the station on the issues that are only important to a small minority of progressive privileged middle class white people. KPFK needs to become a station that everyone from the oppressed communities needs to listen to and begin to trust, but they can't do that if they can't relate to the station, what is on the air, and what politics it's promoting. Issues and conflict of the station should also be made transparent to the listeners who support the station; otherwise it would by lying to the people.

The station needs to represent the vision of a better world. It has to give leadership to those who do not have a voice in this society. It needs to shine the light on oppression and injustice. If the station claims to be that, then it has to struggle against oppression and injustice even within the station itself.

I hope to help with this vision and hope the help shift the paradigm at the station being part of the Local Station Board of KPFK.

My name is Joaquin Cienfuegos, I'm a member of Cop Watch Los Angeles (South Central Chapter) and the Revolutionary Autonomous Communities. I'm a 24 year old Indigenous-Chicano male from South Central Los Angeles. My parents are from Michoacan, Mexico, and immigrated here when they were both young. I started organizing when I was young, at 17 years old. What politicized me was my life experience, dealing with the police in South Central, and the racist anti-immigration laws that were passed when I was young, especially proposition 187. I read a lot on my own, when I was kicked out of school for standing up to my teachers. I took my GED test and starting going to community college. I began to focus on community organizing, because I felt the most potential was in empowering the people, and building institutions that will replace the oppressive power structure, capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, patriarchy and white supremacy.

People have power, they just need to realize it. So I began organizing and help create the Southern California Anarchist Federation – Los Angeles Chapter.

We build Cop Watch LA out of that and with the help of a coalition called STOP (Stop Terrorism and Oppression by the Police) which was created after the police murder of Suzie Lopez Pena. Cop Watch LA was then created and branched out into the different communities that we lived in: South Central, Boyle Heights, Long Beach, Downtown, and so on. It was a tactic in the self-defense of our communities to combat police terrorism by observing the police with cameras and taking direct action.

The same working class youth of color help form the Revolutionary Autonomous Communities which is a revolutionary federation of community councils helping build a grassroots popular movement, build the autonomy, self-determination, self-organization, and infrastructure for self-defense of oppressed people and oppressed communities.

Thank you,
Joaquin Cienfuegos
Email me at: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Cop Watch LA
www.copwatchla.org
1 877 8 NO COPS